Difficult Thoughts.

I currently feel like a bomb's gone off in my head; the energy to work past my low mood isn't there.

It's like there's a hole where my drive should be. A load of last-minute admin relating to the online interview we're doing in place of Mostly Comedy next week flew in both yesterday and today, which lifted my anxiety to accentuate my sense of worthlessness. It's like I'm racing to meet deadlines for something I'm no longer interested in, which isn't strictly true, but when depression's at its worst, that's how the world looks.

Of course, I know why I'm feeling like this. It's the fallout from a year's worth of watching a close relative illustrate they care less about me than they care about money or maintaining the lies they'd built up. It's learning they never understood what they put me through as a child, then as an adult, and that their temper is such they can't process the truth if it paints them in a negative light. I know reading this would make them angry and defensive, which would only serve to prove my point. This person put me through the definition of a dysfunctional childhood, then abandoned me as an adult (saying, "I don't think we'll ever speak again anyway") even though I gave them more than one easy way out. And now their partner scours my posts for negative comments like I'm the one that wronged them because they've never looked into their heart to consider the atmosphere they contributed to when they moved into my family home might have damaged me. While my relative expected me to keep my escalating struggle out of both her partner and my dad's sight as a child even when it made me suicidal, to not affect her relationship with both (which I did, to no avail).

That's the problem when you deal with toxic people. Recounting what they do to you makes you sound melodramatic. But it's not melodrama: it's the truth. In the year since my dad died, this relative hasn't been kind or supportive to me once, because how I apparently wronged them couldn't allow it. Yet they never stopped to consider that it didn't matter how many times they compromised my upbringing or crossed my boundaries, it didn't stop me loving them or trying to do what they asked. Because that's what happens when your (x) is a narcissist: it's one rule for you and another for them.

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